between the rock and the cold, cold sea

It's impossible to work when this is the first properly warm day of the year. Fifteen degrees! Sunshine! Shorts weather!

So I went for a painful twenty-minute run on one of the beaches - about a mile and a half, I think - enjoying the pleasant shocking warmth all the way. And there was paddling. The sea's still quite cold. Then there was food at the good local food place, and there was an encounter with a very friendly tabby kitten who's going to grow up into a gorgeous cat. (I wanted to abduct him. He was very friendly.)

And now there is staring out my window at warmth and sunshine and blue skies and green grass.

That was a long winter. I don't think I quite realised how long until now.

I feel sick from too much chocolate and too much sleep. Sloth, thy name is hawkwing_lb. Also gluttony.

Okay. Anyone curious about the Silchester Town Life Project? If not, quit reading now. I'm not going to talk about London, however fascinating it was - I like the city, but it's now too long ago for me to remember details.

Okay. Silchester. In the Roman period the site of Calleva Atrebatum, the town centre of the Atrebates, lay to the east of the modern and medieval village. Calleva itself was occupied from the Iron Age to approximately the late fifth or early sixth century, when it was abandoned for causes that are not yet fully understood. In the medieval period, reoccupation centred to the west of the ancient town, with the exception of a medieval church, and a fortified structure built within the amphitheatre, to the northeast of the walls, known from remains and documentarily from the wars of Stephen and Mathilda.

I can give you the précis of the Roman occupation, or you can look it up on Wikipedia or on the Silchester Town Life Project's website, both of which will probably give you a more comprehensive picture than I at present have the patience for.

That's the overview. The view from the ground is a lot more uncomfortable.

I arrived there in the middle of the fortnight-long heatwave. The first week was made of dust and sweat and sunburn: fortunately the only part of me that tends to burn without my noticing are my ears, but damn, my ears spent the next two weeks peeling.

First we cleaned. Three and four days cleaning weeds and the top layer of dirt of the previous year's excavation: the staff - of which there were about forty, to a hundred-some students - arrived a week beforehand and did the worst of the dirty preparation work. So that first week was spent in trowelling, learning the basics of planning, taking levels, recording, dealing with small finds, environmental sampling, the principles of the archaeological matrix.

I learned a lot. There were talks and lectures on various things over the course of the next three weeks - ask me and I'll tell you about the day I spent doing experimental archaeology, running around in fields and playing with molten lead.

I also learned I don't have the patience or the temperament for field archaeology. It requires too much recording and fiddling and patience and physical contortionism and tolerance for mud and dust and insects and camping and outside living. Which I don't mind so much, but all of these things at once? Is just a little more than I can bear. Also, other people. So many, twenty-four hours a day, six days a week.

I like what happens in environmental, and I am fascinated by objects. What they tell us, how we use them, how we conserve them, how we find out what they are and what they do. The post-excavation process is intensely interesting. But actual archaeology itself is not my first love. It's not even a love.

I think it's incredibly valuable, and very useful to the historian to understand how we gather the information that we use - and the flaws and drawbacks of that process: gods, the amount of information we can lose is honestly frightening, and so much of it's piecemeal and fragmentary and dependent on the conditions of survival - and so I hope to continue spending at least a couple of weeks per summer doing actual excavation. But in future I'll be concentrating on my ancient and dead languages, and my modern language skills, and maybe look for some training in post-excavation and conservation stuffs, since I've learned that I do not want to make a career out of field archaeology its own self.

Thus you have my story. Apply within for further boring details, including of scenery, food, locale and personnel if such interests you.

If not, I should put some thought to writing a)the report for Reading that I have to do for my 20 ECTs, and b)the report for Trinity that justifies the two hundred euro grant they gave me to help with my costs.

Home. Electricity. Showers. Internets. Oh internets! Never leave me again!

The story of my adventures in archaeology will be recounted at some future point when I have slept, showered again, and regained some ability to think in less wobbly lines.

Also, I had a harebrained idea when I was away. Anyone (else crazy enough to) want to do a charity cycle from Le Havre to Istanbul in 2011? :P

Hot. Sweltering.

It's very interesting, though. And internets here are expensive, so I'll just say I've been to Europe's biggest bookshop, wandered around Covent Garden, seen the British Museum, St Paul's Cathedral - the Whispering Gallery is fabulous - the tiny remains of the Mithraeum, walked down the Thames to the Tower and walked all around the outside, walked up to Horse Guards and seen the poor soldiers sweltering in the heat, walked around to Trafalgar Square and ate at a place calling itself "The Texas Embassy Cantina". Lot of walking. Now I'm off to do some more.

Good thing the underground is everywhere, though.

The cat remains at the vet until Monday at least, but we visited him today. He is alert and making noise, and expressed his feelings at seeing us by purring, head-butting, and rubbing white fur all over my black t-shirt.

I've packed my ruck for Thursday. I only managed to fit three books, plus my language books: I daresay I'm going to run out most pathetically. I have to bring a shoulder bag to carry plate, bowl, and mug, not to mention toothbrush, toothpaste, and other tools of cleanliness, because there's no way I can fit more crap into my ruck: I had to strap tent, sleeping bag, and air mattress to the outside, and I can't figure out how I'm going to bring a pillow. (Something to worry about later, no doubt.)

I'm rather terrified about this business, considering the appalling fuckup I made of last time's attempt to get dig training. But that is also something to worry about later.

I think I'm out of things to worry about today. That means, I think, I get to amuse myself, if I can. :)s

Things I am going to do in (my three days in) London:

- Visit the British Museum. Look at all the ancient stuffs.
- Visit the London Mithraeum, Queen Victoria Street, and nearby -
- St Paul's Cathedral
- Visit the Imperial War Museum (maybe: I might just go back to the BM)
- Look at the outside of the Tower (because entry is Expensive)
- Visit the Globe
- Stare at the Parliament buildings and think nationalistic thoughts. (What? I'm Irish. The history of the British government brings out the worst in me.)

That might be enough, I think.

Books 2009: 50-51


51. Anthony Price, October Men.

The fourth 1970s spy novel I've read by Price. This one involves the adventures of David Audley in Italy, North Sea oil, Soviets (of course), and government bureaucracy. Quite good.

It's a little odd to read these, really. They're a window into a very different world. I've never lived when Russia was The Enemy (111!!) of freedom and democracy (such as they are), despite Ireland's pathological screwed-up neutrality. They're just another (sort of European sort of Asian sort of in-between) nation, albeit one a bit more bellicose, corrupt and repressive than one might wish (though much the same might be said for the US). So it's rather fascinating to watch Cold War era paranoia in fiction.


non-fiction:

52. Josef Wiesehofer, Ancient Persia, London and New York, 1996.

One of the standard introductory works to the topic. Arranged broadly chronological, with each different dynasty divided thematically into discussions of military, social conditions, evidence, etc. Rather dry, and perhaps a little pedestrian. But I know a bit more about Achaemenids, Parthians, and Sassanians than I did before.

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The physiotherapist says the only thing wrong with my shoulder is the fact that the muscles were tight as twisted wire and knotted to boot. After a half-hour of torture, she gave me some stretches and instuctions to try to drop my shoulders, not hunch them. I'm cleared to exercise and climb again, though I'm leaving any restart of the training plan until tomorrow.

The cat should come home on Friday. By then we should know whether he'll last out the next few weeks.

I also need to start seriously thinking about packing my rucksack for my month-long Archaeological Adventure. See if everything fits.

College begins again in September. I have, therefore, approximately three months, including time spent at Silchester.

Books

Library, to do with thesis topic:

relevant sections only

1. Placing the gods: Sanctuaries and Sacred Space in Ancient Greece, Alcock etc.

2. Religions of Rome Vol. 1, Beard etc.

3. Religion in Roman Egypt: resistance and assimilation, D. Frankfurter.

4. Isis in the ancient world, R.E. Witt.

5. Isis in the Graeco-Roman world, R.E. Witt.


Mine own.

1. Women in Athenian Law and Life, Roger Just.

2. Forbidden Rites, Richard Kieckhiefer.

3. Xenophon's Retreat, Robin Waterfield.

4. Cultures of the Jews Vol. 2, D. Biale (ed).

5. Greek Science After Aristotle, G.E.R. Lloyd.

6. Hippocratic Writings, Penguin edition.

7. Genghis Khan, John Man.

8. A History of My Times, Xenophon.

9. Crusades Through Arab Eyes, A. Malouf.

10. Ancient Persia, J. Wiesehofer.


Library, for my own interest:

will put aside if boring

1. Byzantium and the early Islamic conquests, W.E. Kaegi

2. Empire and Elites after the Muslim Conquest: the transformation of northern Mesopotamia, C.F. Robinson.

3. Medieval India: researches in the history of India 1200-1750, I. Habib.

4. The Ottoman Empire 1300-1650: the structure of power, C. Imber.

5. The Ottoman Empire: 1326-1699, S. Turnbull.

6. The Silk Road, F. Wood.

7. The Silk Road: a history, Franck & Brownstone.

8. The Silk Road and beyond: trade, travel and transformation, K. Manchester (ed).

9. The Silk Road: trade, travel, war and faith, S. Whitfield (ed).

10. Medieval Russia 980-1584, J. Martin (and there's even a lending copy!).

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Reading the Byzantium book has made me much more interested in the contact, conversation and conflict across the eastern world, beyond the borders of what became Latin Europe, than I was before. So this is a good selection of books, I hope, to sample, in between Real Work building up my picture of the Greek world and acquiring Broad Background in History.

I've been putting off a number of books on my personal list - I've had the Man book and the Malouf book for ages, and never, it seemed, the right time to read it. There's an appalling number of books on my shelf, actually, from back in the mists of time when I had a job and cash moneys. Victorian, early modern England, a lot of WWII France books, some Stalinist Russian history, a little bit of early modern Europe stuff, maybe three American history books, an intimidatingly large history of the Balkans, and Guido Majno's massive The Healing Hand, which I'm sure I'll just as soon as I have the courage to embark upon it. Not to mention the handful of Greek history books that escaped being read, and the stulifying original sources I haven't been able to bring myself to read.

I'll work my way through it all eventually.

---

Also on the to-do list this summer: more Latin, more Greek, a refresher dip through French - I'll start off with vocabulary, that should be simple enough, and work up to reading some Harry Potter or short stories or something - and an introduction to German.

The German should be... interesting. I have no background in it at all, and no idea how to start. However, start I must, since the languages of Classical scholarship are English, French, German, Italian, Latin and Greek, with some forays more recently in Polish.

I could use the college's resources to learn a language. But. I think I learn well enough on my own without signing up for a class that might interfere with my proper classes next year. So. Plan is, find a book, and start plugging away at grammar and vocabulary.

(I need to start Latin from scratch again, since I've forgotten all I learned last summer. Ah, learning. Ah, memory.)

...are a good thing. Alas, I did not actually like the book. But hey, maybe another book.

Books 2009: 47

47. John Gardner, Grendel.

An interesting book. But while I can admire it as a work of craft, I can't really say I liked it. Too much nihilism, not enough daring hopeless last stands and shiny: my kick in books is ones whose main characters recognise the ultimate futility of the universe and decide to fight it anyway.

Still, Gardner's Grendel is certainly a fascinating monster, and the prose and word and language-play is delightful.

---

I loaned my spare copy of Dust in return. Wonder if our tastes are in any way close? :P

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It's ten o'clock in the morning, the sun is shining, and loud and offensive 'music' has already started down the road. Summer. *sigh*

Exams are over. The last one was yesterday: I feel pretty okay about them overall, but it's going to be a wee bit tricksy containing my suspense until the evening of June 23, when the results are published at the entrance.

I have sixteen days before I leave for my month and a few days in England: first a couple of days in London to see the British Museum and the Imperial War Museum (hopefully: I might spend all my time in the DM and not go anywhere else). Then on to Reading, and Silchester, where I will erect my new tent (sold to me by a handsome climber in the Great Outdoors) and take part in a training excavation for four weeks.

I want to get started on writing and serious exercising first, and maybe look at some thesis books, if my lecturer gets back to me. I'll have busy times, but fun: I don't have to spend my time nose-down over a page of notes for another year, and by damn I mean to enjoy every minute until lectures start again at the end of September.

I haven't made arrangements to return from Silchester yet. I was thinking of train and ferry, with - if I can afford it, and I probably can't, because I'm broke now and I will be dead broke then - maybe a couple of days for sightseeing in Oxford or Cambridge. I have family in Oxford, so maybe I can work something out: the last time I was in England I was thirteen, and I saw not enough of Oxford and not even a day's worth of London.